and we're all together again
by ember53608
Summary: the disbelieving laughter on her lips makes no sound, but it exists: in the part and the smile and the gleeful curve. [post-canon.]


This was my entry for the Naruhina Fanzine, so if you bought that, you've already seen it, but if you didn't, please enjoy! I'm going to try to write more fic for this fandom once school is over, so here's to hoping. :D

Read and review, please!

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There is something truly marvelous about how in love with a person one can be in spite of what stands before them. Hinata knows this, because although her husband stands before her looking a total mess—hair uncut and unkempt, lavender stamped under his eyes, robe drooping off of his shoulders—there is something about the ramen takeout and handcrafted card and gift bag in his hands that makes her heart swell to an unfathomable degree.

It is three in the morning on a work night, and their tenth wedding anniversary is today, and Naruto Uzumaki _remembers._

"Hey," he breathes. He stands at one end of the kitchen, feet straddling the threshold that spills into the living room. Hinata holds one hand to her mouth in an attempt to hide a growing smile and uses the other to turn the spoon in her pot of soup.

"Hi," she answers, amazed at how much effort it takes to utter the one word.

Naruto almost scowls at the vague reply, but he quickly replaces the frown with a wry smile. "You thought I forgot, didn't you?" he asks, and he drops the contents in his hands onto the counter before circling around to meet her at the stove top.

A pinkish flush travels along the skin of her neck when his wintry breath touches it. Hinata bites her lip and stares straight into the ventilation hood while Naruto dips a finger into the soup, then hums after he licks it clean. "Maybe," she murmurs, and the smile threatens to break across her face all over again.

"Well, if it wasn't already obvious,"—he gestures dramatically towards the counter, then surprises her with a sloppy kiss to her cheek—"I didn't." Hinata turns on her heel, cheeks flushing crimson as her husband walks away from her and busies himself with the takeout. The disbelieving laughter on her lips makes no sound, but it exists: in the part and the smile and the gleeful curve.

Hinata composes herself, then rolls her eyes and returns to her soup, muttering "ridiculous" with an unmistakable smile.

"Ridiculously in love with you," he counters, and the laugh takes shape, falls off of her lips like a bell. Naruto's back is turned to her at the moment, but she can picture the contented smile he wears, picture the dip of his eyelids as he hears her voice and dwells on other pretty things.

She turns her spoon and listens as the wind whistles outside with the snow, winter filtering into the village at a steady pace. The sleeves of his orange sweatshirt stretch well past her fingers, but Hinata warms to the material and latches onto the edges. Naruto sits wrapped up in her scarlet scarf, which is wrought with a dozen little holes by now but has been kept with love over the years nonetheless.

"I can knit you a new one," she's told him every day, but Naruto has always taken her hands, splayed the fingers apart and smiled soft like his heart is held within them. "To me," he has said, then taken her fingers and touched them to the yarn, "this is new."

And it is, in a way.

Every hole that it's learned to house after his winter missions is new; one from the reconnaissance assignment with Sakura and Sai in April, another from his sparring match with Sasuke this past fall, and there, near the lower left side, a stitch rendered into a hole by the efforts of a small and curious finger.

Every day that he's worn it to work or to town or to somewhere is new; just yesterday, in a marriage meeting with the Hyuugas for Konohamaru, who will marry Hanabi in the spring, and again in about a week, to a finalization by the elders of his inauguration as Hokage.

Every kiss that she's given him while holding onto it is new; the last one before he left for a two-week diplomacy trip with Shikamaru, the first one when he finally came back, and the dozens and dozens that came in the hours after his arrival, measured by the smiles that lit up his face.

Hinata takes a seat next to Naruto, sets two bowls of soup on the table in front of them before swallowing an offered bite of ramen, and realizes—

— _love_ is new.

It exists and it persists, and it warms her to the touch, sets fire to any shiver that winter sends down her spine. Naruto reaches back to curl an arm around her, and she heartily rests her head on his shoulder, digs into the ramen and soup as if it's dinner they're eating together, and not an ill-timed snack.

Outside, snowflakes fall and stick to the kitchen window, and it's only per the reflection in the glass that Hinata notices a pair of eyes peering into the kitchen, the sky blues lidded but surprisingly curious for this hour. "Mama," says one pair's owner: a small, raven haired girl who holds loosely onto her older brother's hand. Naruto looks to Hinata briefly, grins wide.

"I want Ichiraku Ramen," mumbles the golden haired boy, and this time, his father laughs. Hinata holds out her arms to her children, and the warmth that had overcome her when Naruto first walked into the kitchen returns with the grasp of Boruto and Himawari's fingers on her lap.

Naruto brings his arm further around once the pair settles, then gives a generous squeeze. _Love is new_ , Hinata thinks.

And it exists, in this.


End file.
